Ichiro said what?

Sasha Issenberg of Slate mused on the crazy stuff that comes out of the mouth of one Ichiro Suzuki. The Mariners star, who recently re-signed a contract with the team for $90 million, was once relatively quiet. He would approach the media “with a Rumsfeldian mix of impatience and amateur epistemology,” Issenberg writes.

Seattle Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki races to first on a single against the Los Angeles Angels in the fourth inning during a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Since then, we’ve heard gems like these (from the article):

Asked why he decided to stay in Seattle, he says his dog gave him good advice: “He said, ‘Woof, woof, woof,’ which meant, ‘Stay, stay, stay.’ Of course, I listened.”

Asked whether he was surprised with his performance this season: “It’s not surprising. At the same time, it’s not that usual. It’s somewhere between usual and surprising.”

About Tiger Woods: “Tiger is a great golfer, but … when you say athlete, I think of Carl Lewis. When you talk about [golfers or race-car drivers], I don’t want to see them run. It’s the same if you were to meet a beautiful girl and go bowling. If she’s an ugly bowler, you are going to be disappointed.”

“The problem usually isn’t on the cover. If you are talking about a tree – if the tree has a problem, you need to look at the root. But you cannot see the root. The mistake is to keep watering the tree. That’s not going to solve anything. You need to find where the problem is.”